Iran urges UN to take action against terrorism

 Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations Mohammad Khazaei


Relatives mourn beside the coffin of Iranian diplomat Abolqasem Asadi in Tehran on January 20, 2014.

Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations Mohammad Khazaei has called on the UN Security Council to take action against terrorist attacks in the wake of the recent assassination of an Iranian diplomat in Yemen.

    “It is crystal clear that the terrorists responsible for this crime have been influenced by extremism and blind violence, and know no limit to their criminal acts even against the diplomatic missions of other countries, which enjoy political immunity under the international conventions,” Khazaei wrote in separate letters addressed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and President of the Security Council Zeid Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussein on Monday.

He also welcomed the UN condemnation of the bomb attacks outside the Iranian Embassy in the Lebanese capital Beirut last November, stating that Tehran calls upon the UN Security Council to strongly condemn the assassination of the Iranian diplomat in Yemen.

Khazaei further urged the Security Council to obligate all its member states to help identify the perpetrators of the killing, adopt necessary measures to prevent funding terrorists, and offer full cooperation to punish the assassins and their supporters.

On Saturday, the commercial attaché of the Iranian Embassy in Sana’a, Abolqasem Asadi, was gunned down by members of a terrorist group outside the Iranian ambassador’s residence in the Yemeni capital.

The assailants first tried to kidnap the Iranian diplomat but when they faced resistance, opened fire on him. The diplomat who was seriously injured passed away in hospital.

Following the incident, Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Yemeni chargé d'affaires to protest the fatal shooting of the Iranian diplomat in Sana’a.

The Foreign Ministry reminded the Yemeni Embassy official that under international rules and regulations, governments are responsible for the security of foreign diplomats.

Yemen’s Foreign Ministry says the country would welcome an Iranian delegation to Sana’a and is ready to cooperate with Iran in investigating the attack.

MP/AS/MAM